Search

You are here

forests

According to data from Global Forest Watch, an online mapping platform that tracks tree cover loss and gain in near-real time, industrial development and forest fires in Canada’s tar sands region has cleared or degraded 775,500 hectares (almost two million acres) of boreal forest since the year 2000. That’s an area more than six times the size of New York City. If the tar sands extraction boom continues, as many predict, we can expect forest loss to increase.

New analysis published in Nature Climate Change shows that Indonesia is losing primary forest at a staggering rate. The country now has the highest rate of loss in tropical primary forests in the world, overtaking Brazil. Primary tropical forests are the most carbon- and biodiversity-rich type of forest ecosystem.

Indonesia and Singapore have been bracing themselves in recent weeks as warnings that this year's dry season would likely herald a severe spike in forest fires in Sumatra, with toxic haze across the region.

Rapidly declining natural systems are bad news for business. There is a two-way street between the economy and the environment: Businesses damage the environment, and the damaged environment then creates risks to the bottom lines of businesses.

Three reasons explain why investors should include sustainability considerations in their decisions, and why doing so is compatible with fiduciary responsibility.